In Remembrance I Relive
by Sami-Fire
Summary: Prussia's past comes back to haunt him in an almost literal sense, causing him to take stock of his current life. He doesn't like what he sees.
1. Chapter 1: The Memory Remains

There are times when Gilbert is stricken with a fit of wanderlust, compelled to crawl out of his room in the basement for a walk through the city. He ambles absentmindedly through the streets, wrapped in the din of passing cars and crowds. He has no set destination, simply following the lines of sidewalks to wherever they may lead. His eyes scan the cityscape, searching for even a minute trace of the world as it once was. The past is covered in the stone and cement and smog of the present. Cars rush by with a dull roar, choking everything in a trail of noxious fumes.

Despite the clamor of the city around him, this is a rare quiet time for Gilbert. Staying silent on these journeys is a skill he learned some time ago, when he discovered not even his voice could penetrate the noise of a bustling modern city. It is sadly fitting that he can't be heard in a world that has forgotten who he was. He is an artifact of an age long past, and while he has an identity acknowledged in the present, what he believes to be his true self seems to be lost to the mists of time for everyone except him.

Others of his kind know him as Germany's "other" nation and as Ludwig's ne'er-do-well brother, but in his mind he is, was, and always will be the ancient, abolished, and awesome nation of Prussia.

He continues to plod across the pavement, barely moving to dodge people that are coming his way. The city that was once his never looked like this before. It used to be quieter and cleaner, the people used to be more polite, and it might even have been a little warmer.

Somewhere, in the distance but coming closer, the sound of horses' hooves can be heard.

Gilbert suddenly stands stock still. He tries to block out the sounds of the city, trying to tune into the sound of the horses and their sound effects from a distant era. The only horses that anyone uses now are the ones with wheels.

He's about to shrug it off and keep walking, but the clip-clop of hooves only gets louder, and when he turns around, the source of the sound is _right there,_ coming down a street that no longer appears to be made of asphalt. Indeed, there are horses pulling a coach down a fairly empty street, pulling up to a building that's not a monstrous mix of concrete, steel, and glass.

Once the horses stop, the area is silent, aside from the idle chatter of a few people passing by. Gilbert takes a deep breath of air that is fresh and clean and smells like home. Of course it smells like home; he _is_ home, heralded by a perfectly blue sky. He sees someone getting out of the coach, and he swears to God he _knows_ that person, and he's about to charge across the street and greet him when a young woman walking by calls to him.

"Mister?"

Something pulls him back from his advance, and just like that, the horses vanish, clouds smother the sky, his lungs violently reject the foul air, and the inane babble of the city crowd and the roar of engines assails his ears.

"Is everything alright? You nearly jumped into oncoming traffic."

At first, Gilbert says nothing. He blinks, gathers his thoughts, and re-focuses his eyes. Once he becomes conscious of a hand on his shoulder, he recovers with a jolt and whips out his winning grin. "Yeah, great, everything's fine," he says hastily, trying to avoid sounding brusque.

"Alright, then," says the young woman who grabbed him. She turns and rejoins the faceless, unimportant mob, bearing the awkward smile of a concerned stranger.

Gilbert cannot keep his own smile. Instead, he looks back, brows knitted in thought, and scratches his head, confused.

He could have sworn there was a coach there.


	2. Chapter 2: Heavy Rings on Fingers Wave

Today, Gilbert idles in the basement of the little brother that he raised. He vacantly spins around in the chair in front of his computer, which he chiefly uses to update his blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Livejournal. Knowledge of how to use this new technology came to him a little more slowly than it did for the other nations, but once he got a handle on it, there was no stopping him from using it to "spread the awesome around."

He spins two circles clockwise, then three circles in the opposite direction, dizzily coming to a stop to stare at the wall for a moment. It fails to be worthy of his attention for more than a minute, and he goes back to fidgeting with his computer's mouse. In his boredom, he gets a powerful craving for strawberry ice cream (the kind that loves to end up splattered all over his computer), so he goes to get some.

He stops when he hears someone call his name, stiffening up and listening for any subsequent sounds of interest, but hears nothing. He turns back to his computer, but barely gets a chance to do anything before he hears the voice again.

This time, a quick look over his shoulder is rewarded, for Friedrich II is sitting right behind him, patiently waiting for him to take notice. Gilbert blinks and looks again, but his former king doesn't disappear. Almost on reflex, he kneels before his favorite ruler. "Old Fritz! What brings you here?" he blurts out, delirium and excitement overtaking him at the sight of his old friend. He was the only one who ever got away with speaking so informally in front of the king.

For a moment, he nearly apologizes for the shoddy accommodations, but then realizes he doesn't need to. He's in the opulent throne room of his glory days, after all. This is his true home, not that dingy, drab basement.

Old Fritz just smiles gently, not speaking at all. Naturally, Gilbert sees fit to fill the silence. "So, what's it gonna be today? Are we gonna splatter the Austrians again? Just give the order and I'll do what I do best," he says, his grin every bit as wide as it used to be in those times. Still no response from his leader, only that smile.

Just when it looks like he's about to say something, Gilbert hears the sound of a door opening, and he turns to see a young Ludwig peeking in on them. He sees fit to correct the boy. "Aw, c'mon, West! Can't you see I'm a little busy with Old Fritz here?" He almost doesn't care what he's saying; his favorite king is back, and he's more than ready to carry out his commands.

Meanwhile, hundreds of years away, Ludwig stares at his brother kneeling down in front of his bed and chuckles. Walking in on Gilbert talking to Old Fritz is nothing unusual. The reference to him is a bit odd, however, for Ludwig wasn't even around during the time Gilbert considered his absolute peak, and Gilbert never normally seems to notice that the intruder on his sessions is his brother. Nonetheless, Ludwig dismisses the oddity and shuts the door to the basement.

Some time later, Gilbert finds himself idle once again, this time on the living room couch. His days are quiet and peaceful, but undeniably _boring._ It's not as if he has much to do these days, even when Ludwig drags him along to meetings or other functions he gets to participate in as a nation. The "he" in this case refers to Ludwig, for no matter what he tells Gilbert, the elder brother will always say that the nation he represents is gone, and with it his power and glory. Gilbert doesn't like to think about that, much less to talk about it. Not one bit.

He had flashes of that empty feeling days before, after his talk (albeit a one-sided one) with Old Fritz the other day. After Ludwig had shut the door, he looked back to find that Fritz was gone, and he was back in his basement. After some frenzied searching that involved looking in some unusual places out of sheer confusion (he lost count of how many boxes he had looked inside), he collapsed onto his bed (so small compared to the one he had in the days when he was in charge) and stared at the ceiling, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic in that little room.

Every time he looks at his bedroom, he is reminded of how far in the past his prime was and how far he has sunk. He used to be a mighty warrior, commanding respect even if he came off as an arrogant blowhard. Now he has become a relic, an antique shoved into the basement to collect dust as days slowly passed by.

The thought sends an overwhelming wave of loneliness crashing over him, and in a desperate attempt to cover it up before he gives in to it, he grabs a pillow and holds it as close as he can. It isn't much, but it's something to hold onto, something warm, soft, and most importantly, _real._ He closes his eyes and prays that the spell passes before Ludwig comes back into the room.

"Brother?"

Gilbert hears a child's voice say that word, and the familiarity jars him into opening his eyes.

A young Ludwig is in his arms, pressed close to him, but not returning the embrace. The child can't possibly be older than six or seven years old. "Hey, West," Gilbert says, loosening the hold so as not to squish the little boy. "What are you up to now?" His voice loses the loud, aggressive edge it normally has, becoming soft and gentle (or as soft and gentle as his voice can get, at any rate). It's a demeanor he has reserved specifically just for moments like these with his little brother. He considers it his favorite secret (if his worst-kept), one he keeps close to his heart.

He looks around the room, recognizing it as his bedroom in the mansion he used to have in his days of glory, so much more luxurious than his lodgings in the basement. For one, he actually had a bed that he could fully spread out on without dangling off the edge even a bit. In fact, it was big enough for two people. Such luxuries were commonplace to him when he was on top of the world.

Little Ludwig simply stares up at his older brother before trying to wriggle out of his grip. "N-nothing, brother. Nothing at all." Even back then, Ludwig was a stoic child, afraid to let his big brother know if he was scared or sick. He was both of those quite frequently, the latter more so than the former.

Yes, big, strong, hardy Ludwig had been a very sickly child. He was just as good as keeping up a facade of strength then as he was now, though, and he would always deny that there was anything wrong if asked. It was a trait that grew out of wanting to be as strong as his big brother someday, and even though it earned him nothing but rebukes from Gilbert, he kept doing it.

"You're not feeling sick, are you? Don't be afraid to tell me if you are," Gilbert strokes Ludwig's head, his hair soft and centuries away from that damned hair gel. "I always tell you that there's a line between being strong and fighting through sickness and being stupid about it. If you're sick, you should always try getting better first, if you can. You don't have to be so tough about it just yet."

"But... but it's practice for when I do have to be tough. You never let a cold set you back." The boy is pouting a little, and that just makes Gilbert want to squeeze him that much tighter. For such an unchildlike child, Ludwig has his moments that can melt even his big Prussian brother.

"That's only because I always have things to do, even when I'm sick, so I can't make getting better my first plan. And you know I'm too tough to get sick that often, so it's not like it matters, right?" Gilbert laughs and ruffles the boy's hair, sending him into a tizzy. Once a neat freak, always a neat freak.

"B-brother! Don't do thaaaaaat!" Ludwig squeals, trying to put his hair back into place.

Gilbert laughs at the boy, who is so orderly for someone who is so young. "You're too young to worry about that kind of thing, though, so you should just relax and focus on getting better again."

Little Ludwig slowly brings his hands down and tries to stand strong, tall, at attention, just like he's seen Big Brother do. He's trying to cover up that little bit of weakness that slipped through, even though he's having some difficulty staying upright due to factors he wasn't quite expecting. "I-I don't get it. What difference does it make how old I am? If you're strong, I should be strong, too!" He is indignant, as if he has to defend his right to hide his pain.

"Oh, come on, don't get all tough like that. You just have to accept that you are too young to worry so much. That's just how it is." Gilbert draws Ludwig close again, even as the little boy tries to pull away. He wants his little brother to grow up big and strong, and he doesn't mind having to take care of him one bit. Sometimes, in his mind, he even finds himself calling Ludwig his baby brother instead of simply his younger one. He'll admit that he sometimes babies his brother, but it seems that a child like him is near impossible to spoil. Where he got such unusual discipline is a mystery, even if it can be traced back to that boy's desire to be just like his big brother.

Looking after a child is quite different from what Gilbert is used to, but he has no objections to it at all. He finds something deeply satisfying about having someone who truly needs him, someone to be responsible for. He can't explain why something that runs so counter to his warrior nature makes him feel so _happy._

He notices that Ludwig has relaxed in his arms, finally returning the hug, but it seems odd for him to relax so suddenly. "Are you okay, West?"

Ludwig looks up somewhat languidly, his eyes looking a bit glazed over. "Mm-hmm... I'm fine... I'm just a little sleepy, but it's nothing. I'll be okay."

It is never just "nothing." Gilbert lays the back of his hand on Ludwig's forehead to find it slightly warm. "Wrong answer. Your fever's up again. And normally, when your fever comes back, so do your body aches. I'm right, aren't I?"

Caught in the act, Ludwig sighs, disappointed at being found out. "Mm-hmm... it doesn't hurt too much, though." The tears shining in his eyes betray him.

"What did I just tell you? Don't try to strain yourself if you can get well first! You should be in bed!" Gilbert has had to chastise his strange little brother about this facade thousands of times. "You came here because it hurts and you wanted me nearby to make it hurt less, didn't you?" The poor, sick boy nods. "Why didn't you just say so? There's nothing wrong with being in pain. You're just a kid. You don't have to shrug it off just yet. We just went over this," the Prussian continues, gently stroking the back of his brother's head and trying to soothe him. "Someday, you'll grow up to be big and strong, and by then you'll be ready to handle these kinds of things. But for now, just take it easy, okay?"

Gilbert knows that his brother is just going to repeat this episode, and he'll have to repeat the lecture as well, but he doesn't really mind. He can be happy off the battlefield, too. He loves his little brother with every drop of affection in his heart, and he knows for sure that, with his help, the boy is destined for greatness. He holds his dear little brother close, as if to keep him as safe as possible, even though there's no lurking threat but Ludwig's illness.

Elsewhere, Ludwig walks in on an entirely different scene. "Gilbert? What are you doing to that pillow?" Gilbert picks up his head to look at him, but other than that he receives no response. "Why are you holding it and talking to it like it's your child?" He can't hide the confusion in his voice.

Gilbert rolls his eyes, absentmindedly tousling the hair of the little boy in front of him despite the latter's objections. Again with people mistaking Ludwig for his son! Too many people have been surprised by his apparent "paternal instincts" to count. As usual, he has to set those mistaken people straight. "He's not my kid, he's my little brother," he says to the baffled retainer that just bumbled into the room. "I know everyone sees how I am with him, but why do you people think he's my kid? I-"

Ludwig lunges forward and shakes Gilbert out of his world, eyes wide with shock. "I'm your little brother, and I'm _right here!_"

On reflex, Gilbert hits Ludwig's hands off his shoulder, like an animal striking out in self-defense. He blinks, shakes his head, looks around, and then stares through Ludwig for a moment, still holding that pillow. "What... about my..." he mumbles, as if he's still waking up. Another set of bewildered blinks later, he comes back to reality and replies to Ludwig with a wide, nervous grin. "Of course you're my little brother! What the hell are you going on about, West?" He has a feeling that he has been asking that question a lot lately.

"You seemed to think I was the pillow," Ludwig grunts, unable to hide the baffled irritation in his voice. "Do you have any idea how creepy that looked?" Gilbert's shrug says no. "You were talking to an inanimate object like it was a living person. Worse yet, you were talking to an inanimate object like it was me. That's something 'crazy' people do, Gilbert."

The connection of the word "crazy" to Gilbert stings him deeply. "Um... yeah. That is crazy talk," he murmurs, awkwardly discarding the pillow onto the floor, then putting it back on the couch when met with Ludwig's glare. "I was just... thinking, you know? About old times, I mean. When you were a kid and I took care of you." He scans the floor, avoiding eye contact with his brother. "You used to be so cute," he adds with a quiet chuckle.

Ludwig gives his brother a funny look, but tries not to let the strange episode get to him. "Well... Just don't do that again, okay? It's disturbing."

"Gotcha," Gilbert replies, adding a mock salute for effect and still smiling away to hide the fact that he's just as confused as Ludwig is. He never talked to a pillow. He was talking to his little brother.

The strange episode gets to Ludwig anyway, even as he tries to force a tiny smile on his way back to the kitchen. He isn't one to get creeped out easily, but something about the way Gilbert was talking to that pillow unsettles him. It's not that he has a problem with what was said. He remembers those kinds of conversations with his older brother fondly, and he'll never deny that Gilbert was quite responsible around him, almost like a father figure.

Ludwig quickly shakes that last notion out of his head, since that kind of comparison is another can of worms entirely. His brother was, and still is, simply his brother, and a good one at that.

No, what really bothers Ludwig was how wrapped up Gilbert was in that fantasy, how happy he seemed to be with the little brother that Ludwig used to be. He knows that Gilbert isn't always happy with his present situation, and that dissatisfaction sometimes spreads into how he treats him. However, he seems to love the past so much more than his present, even to the point of rejecting his brother's current incarnation for the one in his memories. A fixation like that can only be dangerous.

This incident is yet another one in a string of episodes of odd behaviors that Ludwig has noticed. Never before has he seen Gilbert so prone to fantasies and reminiscence, spacing out at random times and constantly talking about history. It's especially bad when he's in the basement. It seems that he's staring off into space or talking to himself every single time Ludwig goes downstairs, like a bizarre coping mechanism he needs to keep himself sane in there.

Ludwig feels the worry course through his body and tense him up. He has someone he calls whenever his anxiety gets this bad. Maybe that person will have some idea of what to do.


	3. Chapter 3: Another Star Denies the Grave

"I think I have every reason to be worried, Italy! It's as if he'd rather be anywhere but the present! ...Yes, this _is_ a problem. What do you mean why? It's because we live in the present, not the past! Are you deliberately..."

Ludwig's blowing off steam can be heard even from the basement. Feliciano is always willing to allow Ludwig to vent and lend a sympathetic ear (Lovino is a troublesome "basement brother," just like Gilbert, even though Feliciano's house doesn't have a basement), even though he's as dense as he ever was. Talking to Feliciano seems to wind Ludwig up just as much as it cools him down.

Gilbert creeps up the stairs to listen in on his brother's conversation, and to make it look like he was going to go get a snack anyway if he was caught. Ludwig continues to try and pound into Feliciano's head what exactly his problem is. "This kind of behavior just isn't normal! ...Very funny. No, it's not even normal for _him_. He's always somewhere else... how many times have I had to repeat this to you? Now you're just messing around with me. Cut that out."

The curious Prussian peeks out a little further from the stairs, intrigued by the one side of the banter that he can hear. He still can't see his brother, but Ludwig's deep voice is loud and clear. "Do you really think that he'd be willing to do any of that? You know how, ah, awkward it gets when I try that with my brother..." He leans out further. He's the topic of their conversation, so he feels that he should be allowed to hear what's making him a subject of choice other than his awesomeness.

The thought of those two discussing his greatness makes him laugh, but the overall effect is somewhat bittersweet. For some reason, telling himself that he's the best of the best feels odd nowadays, like a shoe that doesn't fit. A rush of sadness passes over him in that awkward moment he has with himself every time his self-praise suddenly fails to work. He's used the tactic countless times to try to lift his recent depressive spells, only to have it fail at random.

Ludwig's continued conversation snaps him back to attention. "Yes, it's direct, but... since when are _you_ telling _me_ to just go do something?"

Gilbert leans even further forward, this time overbalancing and falling flat on his face with an ungraceful-sounding squawk, and with that, he is caught. "Gilbert!" Ludwig shouts, jarred by the sudden intrusion. "I guess the decision on whether to do that or not has been made for me. I have to go now, Italy." He hangs up and looks at his brother like he fell out of the sky. "You overheard all of that, didn't you?" Gilbert nods and pulls himself off the floor. "Don't go anywhere. I want to talk to you about something." It's almost a command, not a request.

The older brother pulls out his winner's grin, trying his best to look confident despite a feeling that he might be in trouble for something (again). "Yeah? What's up?" He pulls out a chair at the table and sits down, trying to look casual, but unable to disguise the slightest hint of a glare.

"You don't seem to be yourself lately," Ludwig says, sitting across from his brother. "I never really thought you were much of a daydreamer, but these days, it seems you're on another planet every time I look at you. You never used to be like this."

The grin fades despite some twitchy attempts to keep it up as Ludwig begins to list the ways Gilbert has fallen. "Why are we talking about what I used to be?" The topic is a singularly uncomfortable one for him. He thinks he feels something cold and metal on his wrists, and his hands move behind his back, as if he were being handcuffed.

Ludwig's hand goes to his forehead for a moment, his anxiety creeping up on him. "Because this just doesn't seem right, Gilbert. You're not acting like you're 'all there,' so to speak-"

"So you've got a problem with me just because you don't think my behavior is 'right,' huh?" Gilbert snarls, not able to stand that sentence for another moment. He might be getting on the offensive just a little bit early, but he's almost always primed for a messy argument whenever Ludwig tries these kinds of 'talks.' They tend to turn into litanies of Gilbert's faults, an endless stream of urgings to be more responsible, to take care of this and that, to give a damn about someone other than _himself_ for a change.

Likewise, Ludwig expects Gilbert's defenses to go up right away. "That's part of it, I guess. Your behavior just worries me."

"More than it normally does?" Gilbert says, not disguising the snark in his voice at all.

Ludwig's response is an emphatic "Yes!" punctuated by his hand slamming down on the table with more force than he intended. "Ever since you've moved in, you've always been a bit lazy, and you've been selfish since the beginning of time," though he can remember a time where he actually wasn't, and a surprisingly lengthy amount of time at that, "but you've never been listless like this, and you've never been much of an escapist."

Gilbert quirks an eyebrow, not quite sure what his brother means. Ludwig continues his little speech. "You've been retreating into these fantasies more and more often, and when you do, it's like there's nothing outside the world in your head. It's like you don't know where dreams end and reality begins. When I walked in on you the other day, you talked to me as if I wasn't..." He nearly chokes on the words. It's not as if he likes having to rattle off the Prussian's problems. "As if I wasn't, well, me."

"I have a _perfect_ grip on reality," Gilbert grunts. "And I never even saw you enter the room. I was talking to... well, you, but a younger you, then a retainer confused you for my son for the five hundredth time, and I was correcting him and suddenly you were shaking me." His words shoot out at a rapid-fire pace. This explanation isn't one he wants to spend much time on.

It's Ludwig's turn to quirk an eyebrow now. "You what?"

Gilbert runs into the wall of not being able to explain what's been happening to him without coming off as a complete lunatic. "Uh... it was kind of like remembering, but I was actually _there._ In the moment. Like it was that time all over again. The whole world around me becomes like the memory, so I didn't see you, and I didn't even see the living room. I was in my old bedroom… you know, the big bed over here, the mirror over there." The explanation is just as awkward and disjointed as he feels giving it, his hands gesturing vaguely in the direction of invisible objects.

"Pardon me for saying so, but... Gilbert, that sounds completely ridiculous." Ludwig's hand is just about glued to his forehead by now, desperate to massage away a headache. "Do you have any idea how that sounds to someone like me?"

"So what? Think what you want. It's real to me, alright. I'm not going crazy. I bet these happen to everyone with a long and convoluted history, like... I don't know, maybe you should ask Arthur or Francis if they get these awesome, vivid... _things_ while they're awake," Gilbert says with confidence. The smug smirk comes back now that he's treating these consuming flashbacks like they're a special privilege. "I doubt there's anything really wrong with me, West. You've been so anxious lately that I wouldn't be surprised if _you_ were going crazy."

"Why do you _think_ I've been so anxious lately?" Ludwig snaps, all too aware that Gilbert might be right. This tension can't possibly be healthy, especially not as it erupts from within him. The result is an adamant, "Gilbert, you were talking to a _pillow!_ How am I not supposed to think that something's not right?"

"It's always a matter of what is and isn't right to you, isn't it?" Gilbert is starting to mumble and drift away, feeling tired. It doesn't help that the room is suddenly much colder, and there is _definitely_ something on his wrists. "It's always about your rules, your order, your this and that..."

Ludwig can never come up with an answer when his brother pulls that card, or at least not one that he'd like to give. Fortunately, this time he has a way to dodge the question, since Gilbert has been doing something weird with his hands during almost the whole conversation. "What are you doing with your hands back there?"

Gilbert, however, doesn't hear the question at all. All of Ludwig's words sound like accusations to him. He has his odd feeling of being persecuted for stupid crimes that are not crimes at all, and it's not long before he sees who else is against him. The Allies, minus Yao, are all seated at a huge table in front of him, all slightly different in demeanor.

Alfred reads out Law 46, the proclamation of Prussia's abolition and of pulling Gilbert's power out from underneath him. He rattles the words off rapidly, getting faster as he goes on, as if he must get to the end and dissolve that nation _right now_. Arthur keeps his eyes fixed on Alfred, as if trying to spur him on by burning a hole into him with his gaze. Francis, good old friend that he _was_, looks at Gilbert solemnly, as if he's not too happy to see his old battle buddy undone in this fashion (perhaps he would prefer to watch him die in a glorious burst of violence instead?), yet he raises no objection.

Ivan, on the other hand, is smiling away, because he made a deal with Gilbert that would still leave him with a country of his own, but _goodness_ was he ever hasty to make the agreement! He was so desperate to preserve himself and any measly scraps of power he could get that he didn't even look for any fine print. Oh, what _fun_ Gilbert was going to have when he lived with Ivan as East Germany!

Gilbert's mad cackle rolls out loud as thunder. "Go ahead, _read_ that law! You wanna see militarism? Oh, I'll _show_ you militarism, you little shit! Go ahead, try and take away everything I've got! I'll get back on my feet and conquer you all in no time, and you know it!" He thrashes around like he can just rip his handcuffs apart, spitting vitriol at the nations before him as he does. They're so desperate for an excuse to punish him that they have to make up their own list of flaws!

"I can't believe it," Ludwig mutters, dumbfounded by the sight of his brother struggling against invisible binds and snarling at people he can't see. "You're going into one of these episodes _right in front of me._ All you're doing is convincing me to get you help." As stolid as he normally is, Ludwig can't conceal the concern in his voice. His brother may finally have gone over the edge at last.

"Help?" Gilbert snarls, hands still wrenched behind his back in phantom binds. "What the hell do you mean, 'help?'" He pauses, and his face relaxes a little. He looks around for those people that Ludwig can't see, listens for Alfred reading that accursed law, but finds nothing. Feeling a kind of vague sense of disconnection from something, he blinks and finds himself back in the kitchen, sitting across from his brother. He slowly pulls his arms out of the position they were forced into, as if they'd gotten stiff from being bound for hours. He finally makes eye contact with Ludwig again. "West... what the hell is going on? What are you talking about?"

"Could you hear me at all?" Gilbert's blank look is the only answer Ludwig needs. "That's it, Gilbert. I'm taking you to a doctor. There must be something wrong with your head. How many times do I have to stress that _you were talking to a pillow?_" He shudders a little. There is something undeniably creepy about a man treating an inanimate object like a human child. "This isn't normal. You keep zoning out-"

Gilbert makes a strange noise, like he's being strangled. "What... what do you mean, 'taking me to a doctor?' I'm fine! There's absolutely nothing wrong with me!" He freezes up. He can think of no logical way to get out of this bind, to convince Ludwig that everything is alright. Ludwig just won't accept that his younger self was there, in his big brother's arms arms, sick and seeking comfort. Ludwig really thinks that he was holding a pillow.

The Prussian's voice grows increasingly frantic as he struggles to defend himself. "You were _there,_ West! Well, it wasn't really _you,_ but you know what I mean! It _happened!_" None of this is adding up in Gilbert's mind. He saw a coach the other day, he spoke to Old Fritz, he held his brother, and he was just dissolved by the Allies all over again. All of it was just as real as the chair he sits on. "Are you calling me insane?" It's such an insult to his dignity that he won't even process it. Surely, Ludwig must be mistaken.

Ludwig, however, is completely serious. "I don't want to say you're insane, but this behavior is hardly normal. It worries me-"

Without warning, Gilbert springs up from his seat, slamming his hands on the table, tensed up like he's ready for a fight. "You want to put me away, is that it?" He keeps going, not even giving Ludwig a chance to deny the accusation. His realizations are all crashing into each other now, a fifty notion pile-up.

Maybe he didn't see those people and the coach. Maybe he was just sitting there, talking to air the whole time. It can't be true; his brother was in his arms, plain as day, yet Ludwig had seen none of it. He refused to believe that such things couldn't be real. "You don't want me around anymore, do you? What, the novelty of having a powerful former nation in your basement wore off? Do I make too much of a mess and take too many of your precious 'resources' for you?"

He lunges closer to Ludwig, getting in his face, crashing against the table again. "You ungrateful little shit! I made you strong! Without me, you'd still be a sick little boy, completely unable to fend for yourself! I _raised_ you, and _this_ is how you repay me?" His hysteria hits a peak; he may as well be foaming at the mouth as he roars and slams the table, spitting at Ludwig.

Gilbert's rampage continues, trampling right over whatever his brother intended to say. "I used to be powerful! I used to have a huge _mansion_! It was twice the size of this shitty little house, not to mention that basement you've shoved me away in! I used to be your awesome older brother, and I still am, SO YOU SHOULD BE KISSING MY ASS!" Tears are streaming down his face now. He collapses into a puddle of sweat, tears, and spit, sobbing onto the table.

Ludwig stares incredulously at his brother, who just completely broke down in front of him. He processes the madman's rant, trying to figure out what provoked it and how to manage it. He _hates_ seeing his brother like this, a broken mess on the kitchen table, especially because he knows that he can be so much stronger, so much more stable, even in a place like their house and a time like the 21st century.

In the end, he comes to a conclusion and speaks it, choosing to ignore the risk of setting Gilbert off again. "You're getting these visions because you miss your past, is that it?" Ludwig gets no coherent response from Gilbert, but the increase in the volume of the sobbing indicates that he's hit a mark. "I'm sorry, Gilbert. I wish I could do something for you, but those days are gone."

"N-no shit," Gilbert chokes out. "Since I've _apparently_ got _nothing._ Nothing but a room in the basement, an ungrateful little shit of a brother who wants to take even that little bit of territory from me, and a bunch of meaningless tricks my head plays on me. No country, no power, no _nothing!_" He sniffles deeply, keeping his face hidden.

"That's not true, Gilbert. That's not true at all." Ludwig reaches out to touch his brother's head, to try and soothe him like the beloved Prussian used to do for him centuries ago, when he was young and sickly.

He is not expecting Gilbert to violently pull away when his hands come close. "G-get away from me," Gilbert rasps, his voice hoarse from his tantrum. He dashes off into his basement and slams the door hard enough to shake the whole house.

Ludwig stares at the basement door, stunned. The echo of the slam devours everything else in his mind, except for the bubbles of worry that crawl their way to the surface. He wants to help his brother. Really, he does. It's just that the only obvious cure for Gilbert's woes is an impossible request.


	4. Chapter 4: Just Like a Wartime Novelty

Gilbert languishes in his basement late that night, staring at a featureless ceiling, one that doesn't even have any cracks in it to make it interesting. The walls are similarly drab. He would have put up posters (preferably of himself) to liven up the place, but he can never be bothered to actually put them up. Consequently, the walls stay bare. There is one piece of his past, a sword from sometime in the eighteenth century, but it's shoved away in a corner and kept hidden in this obnoxiously modern basement, just as he is.

His eyes trace the lines and corners of the room, which he calculates to be less than three-quarters of the size of the bedroom in the mansion where he lived in his glory days. He pauses and runs that thought through his head one more time: _Not even three-quarters the size of my old mansion's bedroom. A mansion where I actually owned more than one room._

The hasty but accurate measurements send pangs of sorrow and longing through Gilbert's heart. All he has now is his one little room in the basement and those odd, overpowering visions of his past, those phantoms that fade away to the nothingness that they truly are, no matter how real they seem. He has no power, no people, no king to guide him, no armies to lead, no one he must take care of with all the love and attention in his heart. He has absolutely nothing to do anymore.

He can't live like this, wasting away in an endless vacuum of _nothing._ This barely qualifies as a life, and yet he is very much alive. He shakes his head and tells himself that he might as well be dead and gone like Rome and Germania. No one really cares about how he fares in the dungeon disguised as a bedroom, and he no longer has the influence on the outside world needed to make anyone care for him. He is, in a word, obsolete.

Gilbert clenches his teeth and tries to keep the tears from coming again. He hates his "half-life" with more venom than he has ever reserved for a foe on his numerous battlefields. The term "half-life" opens him up to a new concept: the idea of Gilbert Beilschmidt as an unfinished job. An unfinished demolition job, to be exact. His death started decades ago, when the only country he had left to represent was pulled under him and he had to move in with Ludwig.

The task obviously was never completed, despite coming so close to finished. Once that last little block that tethers him to his useless existence is gone, he will be free, no longer burdening others (not that he really cares about them right now) or stowed away and inactive like a long-defunct piece of machinery. He smiles a little even as two tiny tears sneak out of his eyes. Surely, there will be a country in Heaven set aside just for him, where he can be magnificent once again and for all eternity.

Gilbert, however, can never simply kill himself. He just can't bring himself to go through with it. His self-preservation instincts take over, and a voice inside him screams _I want to live_ with such fury and determination that even he must bow to it. That makes sense to him now. It's not his job, so he's not the one who's supposed to finish it. However, he knows someone who can do the deed, and who will undoubtedly be more than willing to do so.

He looks at the clock, and the numbers read 1:00 in the morning, the red blazing far too bright in the darkness. Ludwig should definitely be asleep by now, and it would be a decent amount of time before he would wake up to go to work. Now was the perfect time to escape. Swiftly and stealthily, like an animal creeping through the dark, Gilbert slips out of the basement. Sure enough, the house is pitch black, and Ludwig's snoring can be heard coming from upstairs. He makes his way to the door out of the house, where he is confronted by a letter taped to it.

_Gilbert,_

I hope you see this note tonight or tomorrow morning.

I can't say I completely understand what happened today. I don't want you "put away" at all. I have no intention of putting you anywhere but this house. I never said I wanted you to leave. I just noticed that you were behaving even more oddly than usual, and I wanted to know what was going on and if I could do anything for you to help. But now, after what I saw and heard today, you cannot _tell me that everything is alright._

You had a complete breakdown in front of me. Your actions weren't the ones of a person who's mentally healthy, and you know that. I don't think you have anything left to hide from me after an outburst like this. Even if you didn't want to tell me what was on your mind, your secret's out and there's no way for you to take it back.

I'm concerned about you, brother. I know you miss your old life, but you have to understand that your memories aren't all you have. You need to understand that you do have things in the present to hold on to. You have me. You have our country. You have a life to live in this modern world.

I'm sorry, Gilbert, but I have to be blunt. It's time for you to move on and stop dwelling on your past so much. Maybe, once you move on, you'll find a way to be happy under the world's new set of rules. I'm willing to help you get past what's breaking you to as much as I can. Please, for your sake, accept my offer. You have no idea how worried I am about you right now. I want you stable again, so that you can be at least a little happier.

I hope to be able to talk with you soon.

-Ludwig

Gilbert blinks and backs away from the letter in a kind of shock. Of course it would make sense for his brother to be more expressive in a written medium, when he had time to carefully plot out what he had to say. This was almost pleading from him. Gilbert swears he can hear a child's voice cry out, "Please, brother, don't leave me! It really hurts!" and then he feels something fall against him.

He looks down, finds nothing, then looks back at the letter. The collapsing feeling is now inside him, and he can hear that voice inside him shouting that it wants to _live,_ to live like the proud warrior it is. He reconsiders his plan. Maybe he should wait to make his decision till he has a cooler head. If he still feels the "nothing" engulfing him when he's calm, then he can easily go ahead with plan A. If not, he'll simply have to hear Ludwig out.

After reading the letter a second time, however, he changes his mind. Ludwig has no business telling him to move on. He sees no benefits in supposedly sharing ownership of his brother's country. He also fails to understand how simply having his brother is something to be happy about. His brother is an unrepentant nag. The whole letter reeks of his badgering.

What does Ludwig know about what Gilbert has? As far as Gilbert is concerned, the little brat should keep his trap shut. He has a country, a boss to take orders from, a population to feel the ebb and flow of. He may have come close to losing everything once, but unlike Gilbert, he never _actually_ lost everything. The mention of following the world's new rules makes Gilbert's stomach lurch, too. Everything is divided into neat little rules for Ludwig, all of which must be followed, lest there be dire consequences.

Gilbert hates all the stupid rules of the new world, both those set by the passage of time and by the freak of order that is his brother. Both seem to be turned against him, dead set on restraining his spirit, turning him into something he is not. He will not abide any of that. He fails to see how any of Ludwig's suggestions are "for his sake." They seem to all be for _Ludwig's_ sake, for easing his _worried_ mind, for keeping everything nice and neat as he likes it.

Satisfied by his new clump of conclusions, Gilbert takes the letter off the door and scrawls out a note of his own beneath his brother's writing.

_West,_

Going out for a walk. Might not come back.

He pauses and adds "tonight" to the end of that second sentence. It might make Ludwig just the slightest bit less likely to try and find him, since it makes it sound possible that he could be back the day after. _Going for a walk. Might not come back tonight._ That sounds about right to him. He's about to put the letter back on the door as it is when he hastily scribbles out an afterthought.

_You're a good kid, West. I raised you well. Stay strong, just like how I made you. I think you're more than capable of handling yourself in this new world. You've grown up, and I'm proud of you. Looks like you've learned something other than how to be strong from me. You know how to take care of people. Thanks for trying._

-From your older brother with love

He means every word. Gilbert is proud, and not just because Ludwig is the fruit of his labors. Even if he is a naggy little tightass who refuses to see things in any way but his own, his little brother grew up to be a strong, respectable nation capable of fending for himself. That was all he wanted for him, and his brother met and exceeded his expectations. He isn't going to deny that his brother tried to take care of him, and perhaps he might have succeeded under different circumstances. Nevertheless, Gilbert doesn't really care one bit about Ludwig's caring. He's not someone who needs to be taken care of, especially not with this new mission of his.

He eyes the two sets of handwriting: Ludwig's, so perfect that it may as well have been copied from a book, and his own, looking like scratches in wood. The "scratch" in chicken scratch. They're so different, and yet they seem to work so _well_ together. Looking at the neatness in his little brother's handwriting gives him confidence in what he's leaving behind.

A terrific smile beaming from his face, Gilbert puts the note back on the door and slips off into the night. He has a job that he must finish.


	5. Chapter 5: Darkness Imprisoning

With that special sense for finding each other that only nations possess, Gilbert makes his way to Ivan's home that night. He can still use that secret power that nations use to get from place to place quickly, which is a minimal comfort to him. This way, the end can come that much faster.

It's no surprise that the massive Russian's front door is locked tight, but Gilbert knows another way in, assuming it hasn't been fixed up. He goes around to the back of the house and crouches down, spotting a small window that can only be attached to a basement. He gives it a little nudge and is completely unsurprised to find it unlocked.

There was something wrong with this window that prevented it from ever shutting properly, making the room behind it quite drafty. It's just about big enough for him to slide through, and he does so, albeit with more difficulty than he had when he last attempted something like this (and that was to get out). Either Ivan had really starved him thin back then, or he has gotten fat from sitting in the basement all day and glutting himself on the modern era's little luxuries. Either one is a possibility, but he hopes it is the former.

He lands on the floor of a dank dungeon, smelling musty from disuse and pitch black except for the light from the window. His breath almost immediately catches in his throat. He swears he can hear clanking from a distant room, along with someone screaming, "Please, Russia, stop! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He recognizes the voice as Toris's, and he can hear Ivan's high-pitched giggling with it. For a moment, he can feel cold metal shackles around his wrists, and the giggling sounds like it's right next to him, but he blinks and all of those sensations are gone. He shudders as a gust of wind blows in, and all the vile memories associated with this room blow through his mind with it.

It was in this room that Ivan tried his hardest to break Gilbert mentally and physically, demeaning him through every means possible. Gilbert feels a knife tracing his shoulder, but he touches that area and finds nothing. Thinking of what Ivan did to him rekindles his fire. He has no reason to be afraid. He came here to fulfill a mission, and Gilbert is never one to lack the drive to accomplish something that he really wants done.

Gilbert is surprised to find that the door to the dungeon has been left unlocked from the inside. Either the room has been forgotten, or Ivan never bothers to even so much as look at it now that he has no more victims. He doesn't care enough to think about it and makes his way to the main hallway.

Ivan's house is a lot bigger than most other nations' houses, which makes sense in several ways. Many people used to live in here, and Ivan is big enough to need a proportionately large house, anyway. Gilbert prowls around the unlit hallway, looking for the frost giant of his nightmares. He's in unfriendly territory, so he must keep his guard up.

"Gilbert, what are you doing outside your room? I thought you were going to be a good boy and stay there like I told you to."

Gilbert spins around to find his nemesis and target right behind him, smiling calmly, pipe in hand. "Long time no see, you big bastard," he snarls.

Ivan just giggles and shrugs it off. "You've been a bad boy, so I sent you to your room. You should really go back there." He lazily swings the pipe from hand to hand, not taking those piercing purple eyes off him the whole time.

"What makes you think I'm gonna listen to you?" Something doesn't add up properly in Gilbert's mind. Ivan is talking about sending him to his room, and yet he hasn't even seen Ivan till now. He's at a loss as to how to respond. His old claims of Prussian spirit, the ones that come to mind first, don't seem to work at first, but he uses them anyway after some thought. "If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die with my Prussian spirit intact! Do your worst, you sick fuck!" Yes, they work after all. He is as committed to his undoing as he was to his work back when he truly lived.

More giggling from Ivan. Gilbert notices that his hands are starting to tense around the pipe. "Ah, there you go again with your claims of Prussian this and that! When will you ever understand that Prussia is no more, Gilbert? You are the German Democratic Republic. And I control you. My country has so much influence over yours that it might as well be mine."

That more than gets Gilbert's blood running. He grins a twisted grin, excited by the thought of an upcoming confrontation. Never mind that the reference to the GDR feels a little off; nothing can separate him from a good fight, and his fight is _here._ He hasn't tasted blood in far too long. "You just shut the fuck up. You can't ever hope to control me, no matter how hard you try to break me! I'll die free as the day I came in here!" He thinks he can hear someone calling his name from far away, but he pays it no heed.

"Oh, I never said anything about wanting to kill you, my dear GDR." There are few things Gilbert detests more than being reduced to a set of initials like that, not even worthy of a full name. "I just plan to teach you a lesson if you keep being uncooperative like this. I don't want to have to do such a thing, but I can't just let a naughty child run around breaking rules as he pleases, can I?"

"What're you going to do, _punish me?_ It's nothing I haven't felt before. I can take it. I'm practically used to it by now." Gilbert tries to sound like the headstrong braggart that he was and is, but his voice wavers a little when he remembers that Ivan can do much more than just beating him senseless. The other options are ones that he'll never be used to.

Ivan sighs and shakes his head, and Gilbert notices that his hands are beginning to get a little tenser around the pipe. "You always say that it's nothing to you, but I have more than enough reason to think otherwise. Even with your constant rebellion, I think you're beginning to get a little sluggish. Are you tired, perhaps?" His head cocks to the side as he asks the question. "Or hungry? It's an absolute shame that what I give you is never enough for that greedy belly of yours."

"That's because it's not enough for _anyone,_" Gilbert snarls in reply. "You just want to keep me weak so that you can keep trying to pound me into the ground, right? Good luck with that. You'll never be able to break me completely." So what if Ivan made sure that Gilbert's body stayed weak? He could still fight. No matter how much it hurt, he had almost always been through something worse. His warrior spirit was more than enough to take him through any kind of trauma. He swears he can hear the strange voice calling his name again, this time closer, but he has more important things to worry about.

Ivan stops toying around with his pipe, his smile fading. "I don't think you should keep this charade up any longer, Gilbert. You should really just go to your room. Or do you want me to test your claims of unbreakability?"

Gilbert takes the change in demeanor as a good sign, sort of. He's getting Ivan riled up and ready for a fight. He can die in one last glorious burst of violence, just as he should. Even if he's unarmed, he's fought Ivan with his bare hands before. It will be interesting before he made his decision to let the other fighter win, anyway. A challenging fight is the best kind. "Go right ahead, you fat, frigid, vodka-bloated freak!" In utter defiance, he keeps that crazy grin of his up and does all he can to keep from trembling with excitement. His heart beats faster in anticipation of this one last brawl.

Ivan takes the bait, his eyes narrowing into a glare that would set off every warning alarm in someone else's head. He quickly puts his glare away and smiles again, but there's absolutely no pleasantness in this grin. Quite the opposite; a pleasant grin isn't that _wide._ "You're a bad, bad boy, Gilbert, and you need to learn your place! If you're not going to be a good boy, then I'll _make_ you behave!" Just as planned, he rushes toward Gilbert, ready to smash his pipe into him with all his might. Gilbert also charges toward his foe, hoping to at least knock him down to start the fight. He starts to run, but he's abruptly jerked back by something grabbing onto the back of his shirt.

"Gilbert!"

Gilbert unintentionally yelps as his charge is aborted, then blinks to find Ivan nowhere in front of him. In fact, the husky Russian is now in back of him, gripping his shirt.

"Gilbert, what are you doing here at this hour?" Ivan somewhat nonchalantly turns Gilbert around to face him. "I can't say I ever expected a visit from you, especially not now, and especially not like this. Who were you shouting at just now? And why didn't you hear me when I called you?" He seems to be relatively docile for the time being, if a little grouchy from such a rude awakening.

Confused by how Ivan got behind him so quickly, Gilbert has nothing to say at first, but he quickly pulls himself back to his senses. "What do you think I'm here for?" he growls. "I'm here because I want you to finish what you started!" He tries to pull out of Ivan's grip and attack him, but his captor has strengthened his grip to prevent him from moving.

"Finish what I started?" Ivan cocks his head and looks at Gilbert for a moment, his normal slight smile gone. He knits his brows, as if he remembers something that worries him. Apparently, he actually knows what Gilbert is talking about. "I... I think you ought to come with me, then." He takes Gilbert by the hand and drags him through the house to his room.


	6. Chapter 6: Body My Holding Cell

"Gilbert, perhaps you should listen to some things I have to say before we go any further with anything." Ivan sits on his bed, eyes completely fixed on Gilbert, even moving his head to follow him when he wanders from side to side of the room, unable to sit still for even a moment. "Why don't you sit down?"

"If it'll make you feel better when you shoot me or rape me or whatever the hell it is you want to do, fine. What've you got to tell me?" Gilbert sits down in a chair loud enough to make a decent-sized thud when he lands.

Ivan just continues to look at Gilbert. "Would you like some vodka? You look like you could use a drink."

Gilbert keeps his answers as brief and blunt as possible. "Like hell I would. That stuff is disgusting. Now cut the bullshit and tell me what you wanted to say. And make it quick."

"To each his own," Ivan says with a shrug. "I suppose it's too late for me to be drinking, anyway. Or too early. I'm not even sure what time it is."

"I said, CUT THE BULLSHIT!" Gilbert stands up in his impatient fury.

"Please sit down, Gilbert. Or do I have to tie you there?" Ivan sounds calm as always, despite the little threat.

"Whatever makes it easier to do your job," the indignant Prussian grunts, not actually following the request.

Ivan sighs and rubs his forehead. "Please, just... sit down." Gilbert does so, muttering to himself and fuming. "I need to tell you this, Gilbert: times have changed. I'm not like that anymore. I don't want to kill you. I don't even think my old self could kill you, even with all that I did." He closes his eyes at the mention of his old self, as if thinking back on his actions. "I know I can't undo everything I've done. All I can do is apologize for what I've done and try to make things better for those I've hurt, like you."

Gilbert stares at Ivan in complete and utter disbelief. "What? What are you talking about? What the hell do you mean you can't kill me?" He pops out of his chair again, brimming with rage. "You were more than willing to bring me as close to death as possible back then, so why won't you do it now?"

"Did you listen to a word I said?" Ivan is the one doing the staring in disbelief now, letting his irritation slip into his voice. "Time has passed, Gilbert! It's not 1990 or the 1960s or the 1940s anymore! _I'm not the same!_ I don't want to kill you!" The last outburst of emotion is more out of frustration than anything else.

"Damn right, time has passed!" Gilbert lunges toward Ivan, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him close, getting in his face. "And it's left me behind with _NOTHING!_ You showed me that yourself! I barely had anything when I was with you, and believe it or not, I have even _LESS_ now!"

The Russian opens his mouth to speak, but Gilbert just rambles right over him. "I don't even have a country or people or any semblance of power anymore, and YOU were one of the people who helped to take all that away from me!" He's getting so worked up that tears are starting to well up in his eyes. "I don't want to sit around in my brother's basement anymore, wasting away! That's just existing, not actually living! I don't actually do anything! _FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED!_" He shakes Ivan to punctuate each word.

Ivan shoves him back with one huge hand and a bit more force than he intended. "Please sit down," he repeats once more, his voice lowering ominously as he struggles to keep control of the situation. "I'm sorry, Gilbert. I can't do that for you. I can't think of anyone else who would, either." He quiets down for a moment, thinking. "Tell me, Gilbert. How did you get here so quickly? We nations have our own special way of getting from place to place. You used that, didn't you?"

Gilbert nods slowly, not dropping his glare. Ivan continues his speech, completely unfazed. "Well, doesn't that prove something to you? Only those like us can do that. Isn't that compelling enough evidence that you're still a nation, somewhere?" No response, but it's not as if he really waited long enough for one. "I think you have more than you realize. In fact, I highly doubt that you have nothing. You have a home and a brother who must be worried sick about you, and perhaps even more than that. Of course, I wouldn't expect that to be enough for you."

"Are you trying to talk me out of this?" Gilbert can feel his resolve wavering and that voice speaking up inside of him, quiet but distinct: _I want to live._

"I suppose you could say that. I think you're being a little over-emotional, you know? Perhaps you ought to rest and wait till your mind is clear." Ivan yawns at the mention of rest; he's been awake too early for too long. "Maybe then you'll know whether you really want to go through with this."

"And what if I still do?" There isn't even a question in Gilbert's voice. The "And what if" sounds largely rhetorical, a disguise for the firm "I still do."

Ivan sighs again and shakes his head. "I can't do that, Gilbert. You ought to stop asking." An edge reminiscent of his old methods of intimidation slips into his voice. That is not a suggestion; it's an order. "Are you so dead set on your path that you've forgotten how 'special' Nations are when it comes to death? Even if I did kill you, you'd just heal up and come back, since you're tied to a healthy country. You, of all people, should know that."

Gilbert growls, getting more and more frustrated by the minute. "Shut up! I don't have a country anymore!" All that gets him is an exasperated sigh from Ivan. "So what am I supposed to do? Go back to my basement and rot there till the end of time while the world passes me by? _I don't want that kind of life!_ That doesn't even _count_ as a life!"

"Maybe you do have things to do and you just refuse to see them," Ivan suggests. He cuts off Gilbert before he can go into another tangent. "But you do have a point. Perhaps you shouldn't go home tonight. I think you're a little too unhinged right now to be on the streets."

"Look who's calling who unhinged," Gilbert quips, a smirk showing up for the duration of the sentence before disappearing.

The irony is not lost on Ivan one bit, a rueful smile twitching at his lips. "It makes me so sad to see you like this, Gilbert. What happened to that determination you used to have, that insistence that nothing could break you?" He waits for an answer and gets nothing but a stare from the Prussian. "It seems that, at last, something has broken you, and I feel quite sorry about it."

Gilbert's tears betray him, and he wipes those filthy traitors off his face before they can get too far. "I had that determination when there was something to hold onto, even if it wasn't all that much. Anything I had then is gone now. I don't want to just lie around in that basement with nothing to do or no one who needs me." His sorrow shakes in his voice despite all attempts to keep it steady. "So, please... just finish what you started. It's what I want. I'll be free, then..." He drifts off, drowning in a mournful haze of his own making.

The Russian replies with a quiet but clearly frustrated, "No, Gilbert. Just... no." Ivan is the one who stands up and grabs Gilbert's shoulders this time, trying to be gentle with his grip. "I think it would be a good idea for you to stay here tonight. I have plenty of guest rooms, so you can pick which one you want. A good night's sleep works wonders, wouldn't you say?" He's using that old trick of suggestions-as-commands again. It is still quite effective, even after all this time.

"You want me to WHAT?" Gilbert swallows hard, trying to suppress a case of the shakes. "You want me to stay _here?_"

"Da. Yes. There are no strings attached whatsoever. It's just a service to an old friend who has fallen on hard times." Ivan pats Gilbert's head, causing the latter to wince and try to pull away, trapped by the other hand on his shoulder. "Perhaps I'll take you to a room right now. We could both use some sleep." He takes Gilbert's hand and leads him along, keeping a firm grip as the smaller man tries to pull out of it. When they reach the guest room, Ivan pushes Gilbert in with a light nudge. "Please sleep well, Gilbert. Rest your mind." He shuts the door before Gilbert can try to run out.


	7. Chapter 7: Absolute Horror

Gilbert lies on the bed stiffly, trying and failing to make himself relax. Ivan offered him a room with no evil intent behind the gesture whatsoever. He even said so himself, not that that meant much, but he seemed intent on getting Gilbert off his track above all else. Perhaps he had really changed, and Gilbert was safe in this room. However, nothing changes the fact that he sees Ivan looming over him everywhere he looks, telling him he's been a bad boy, that bad boys must be punished, that he is worth absolutely nothing unless he was a good boy.

He isn't even in the clear when he closes his eyes, for then he has visions of being chained to stone walls, of being cut for Ivan's amusement, of being starved and stuffed (but mostly starved) according to the Russian's twisted whims. Then Ivan's hands come, cold yet strangely soft, petting him, stroking him, and holding him when they aren't groping, slapping, or strangling him.

If he makes the mistake of closing his eyes for too long, the worst memories of all come back: the ones of Ivan running him through without a weapon, of being crushed under his massive bulk, of being pinned down while already too weak to resist. Just thinking of that weight pressing down on him makes it hard for him to breathe.

Gilbert growls and grabs his head, curling inward, trying to hide from the offensive flashbacks. Ivan's voice rings in his head as if he were right there, speaking to him, telling him that he had absolutely nothing now that Prussia was gone. He would always argue that he did have something; that he had a country to represent, a house of his own, and people to protect.

Then Ivan would shake his head and oh-so-pleasantly remind him that "his" country was so influenced by Ivan's that it might as well be his territory after all. He would always end by emphasizing that Gilbert was "his." That was uncomfortably true; Ivan had a habit of sticking his pudgy fingers into Gilbert's daily life in ways that made it as miserable as possible, from confiscating the little money he got from the worthless jobs he was forced to work to outright stealing most of his food when he was gone, claiming that he had taken "more than his proper share."

Suddenly, it clicks in Gilbert's head that he has had "nothing" for far longer than he previously considered. When he says he had barely anything in his days as East Germany, he lies to himself (even "barely anything" has the implication of having _something_). He had absolutely nothing even then. Every aspect of his life was firmly in Ivan's grip. Ivan controlled whether he ate or starved, whether he could get away with really helping his people, and whether he even got to sleep in his own meagerly-furnished home instead of a cell hidden deep in that big bastard's house. His life had been reduced to existing as Ivan's toy, to be used and abused as his "master" desired.

Ivan was the first one to make him feel truly powerless, keeping him bound in chains or draining his resources so that he could do anything he wanted to him, and Gilbert wouldn't be able to resist at all. As much as he kept his pride strong and clung to the idea that he still had a country and the power that came with it, at the end of the day Ivan always had the last word. He could pretend that the abuse meant nothing to him, that nothing could break his spirit, but all of those sessions of being chained to the point of not even being able to make a twitch of movement as Ivan did despicable things to him began to add up after a while.

The emphasis was _always_ on Gilbert's newfound powerlessness, how he was unable to really help his people (he'd tried countless times to get them over than damned Wall, and each time he had suffered for it) or to even protect himself from his controller's twisted "games," various forms of torture. He had to take every malicious thrust, whether it was from a weapon or something else entirely. Eventually, his body weakened from the deprivation and stress and made his attempts to push Ivan away even more useless.

When his body's resolve quit on him, it became difficult to keep his fighting spirit up, even if he still retained enough mental fortitude to hold on to his identity and keep from breaking completely. It wasn't as if he could even pretend to fight back anymore, especially given how weak Ivan made him, his body too tired and thin to heed the commands of the mind that burned inside it. He could do nothing to fight off what strove to keep him down, so he stayed down without a hope of getting back up, whether he wanted to admit it or not. That powerlessness was what eventually broke him, even if the full impact didn't come till years later.

At that moment, Gilbert makes a pivotal decision. Even if Ivan is behaving differently from how he remembers, the risk of him employing a mind game and trying to weaken him mentally or physically is too high. He wants to die with all his strength intact, and he doesn't trust Ivan to not pull any dirty tricks. To stay any longer in this place would be counterproductive, so he'll just go home and think of another plan.

He opens his eyes, ready to leave, only to see the barren ceiling of his dreary little house in East Germany, where he lived when Ivan didn't see fit to punish him by taking him out of it. He is less than pleased to find Ivan standing over him as well. "I see you're back to taking more than your proper share, Gilbert," he says, his voice deceptively pleasant.

Gilbert's eyes go wide with terror. He never thought that he would have to deal with _this_ again. He knows full well what this means: he will be dragged out of his house to that frigid dark cell and chained there till morning, with Ivan calling him a bad, greedy boy every step of the way. It's the same lecture every time: how he can tell when Gilbert has been gorging himself, since he's so skinny that his tummy swells when he eats even a little too much (according to Ivan).

What happens from there depends on Ivan's mood. If Gilbert is lucky, those intrusive hands stay on his stomach, and Ivan stays relatively pleasant. "Ah, you're getting so big!" he would say, and give the Prussian's stomach a not-so-reassuring pat. "At this rate, you'll get just as big as I am." Nonetheless, Gilbert would be released and allowed to go home, his possessions completely untouched.

If he wasn't so lucky, Ivan would bring out the pipe and use corporal punishment instead, beating him and urging him to be a good boy, to not be so greedy, to think of the people that apparently _needed_ the extra share that he gobbled down. That was alright. Gilbert had felt much, much worse than the pipe. On worse days, those hands would travel all over, petting Gilbert like a dog, with no care for where they encroached.

The most terrible days of all were the ones that broke him in the end, when they came running back into his memory like a stampede. Absolutely nothing would be held back. The binds, the lectures, the terrible reminders of just how much control Gilbert was really under, the _violation_ would all be employed to make sure he learned his lesson. To rub salt in the filthy wounds, he would not have a decent meal for at least a week. Ivan would make sure of that, either by making sure large portions of food were removed from his house or by simply keeping Gilbert imprisoned for as long as the lunatic saw fit. Everything happened as the lunatic saw fit, with no deviation from the plan whatsoever.

"You've fattened up quite nicely," Ivan says, starting to pace back and forth a little. "How does that fairy tale go? I believe this is when the witch puts the little boy in the oven, da?"

Gilbert can't hold back his scream of horror. He does _not_ want to be Ivan's toy today. He doesn't want to feel powerless ever again. He runs out of his room as fast as his legs will take him, so fast that he's not even sure that his feet are hitting the ground. He is so consumed with the desire to escape that he fails to realize that not only is Ivan not chasing after him, but that he is racing down the halls of the Russian's house, not his old one in East Germany, which barely had any room to run in at all.

He hits the door and nearly smashes through it to freedom, not looking back for even a second. Ivan isn't going to free him from the "nothing," at least not with some catch, and he isn't able to do it for himself. He's going to retreat for now until something better comes along, till he figures out a way to die uncompromised.

Meanwhile, a very confused Ivan stands outside the guest room he gave Gilbert. He heard Gilbert scream, but his guest is gone without a trace.

_I believe I have a call to make._


	8. Chapter 8: Missing One Inside

Gilbert gets home even faster and in even more of a hurry than when he left it. Ludwig must have been at work for some time now, with a few hours left before he came home. The timing couldn't have been better. Now the Prussian has a few hours to himself to make his plans and recover from what just happened. He's not surprised that the door is locked, and is more than a little peeved that he doesn't have a key. Of course, he didn't take one because he didn't expect to come back.

Ludwig, however, had the foresight to put a spare key _somewhere_ around here, anticipating Gilbert's bouts of irresponsibility with keys. His fear that someone might snatch the key prevented him from putting it under the doormat like every normal person who needed to put a spare key somewhere did, so it was always in some unorthodox location that changed every month. Gilbert's eye then wanders to a shoebox that wasn't outside last week. It's behind the garbage can, but it's just noticeable enough for him to catch it. He opens the box, finds the key (_ta-daa!_), and lets himself inside.

He makes a beeline for the basement, not checking anything else along the way. He throws himself on the bed, if only as a way to shake off his momentum. He hasn't slept in nearly a day and is feeling the fatigue, not even bothering to take his shoes off. He buries himself under the covers in a warm, dark shell, desperate to get at least a little sleep, for at the very least he'll have dreams to comfort him then. He feels someone tugging at the covers and making it difficult for him to relax. Finally, in groggy frustration, he throws the covers off to see what's going on.

Standing at the edge of the bed is young Ludwig, in his nightclothes and holding a stuffed rabbit. Gilbert finds himself wondering why he didn't keep that thing, if only just to tease his little brother about when he was all grown up. "You okay, West?" he murmurs, the crankiness draining from him. "What happened? Did you have a nightmare?" The boy nods. "Come on, climb in. There's not much room on here, but there's enough for you."

Ludwig climbs into Gilbert's arms and buries his head in his chest. Gilbert switches into big brother mode with surprising speed, prepared to comfort the boy right away. "Don't worry. Whatever was scaring you can't get you here. I'll keep you safe. It's not like I ever fail in that, right?" With a drowsy laugh, he holds his little brother close, a bit like a stuffed animal of his own. "Your big brother's had a pretty long day, so I'm gonna sleep. You should sleep, too," he murmurs, and falls into a deep slumber.

Later, his eyes flutter open to the drab ceiling that he didn't anticipate having to see again. The sight of it fills him with loathing, because it means he has to spend another idle day in this cage of his. He can't think of anything to do to make his day a little more interesting that doesn't involve his brain turning to mush. He closes his eyes, deciding that he would be best off spending more time in the world of his dreams than anywhere else, but a voice jars him awake again.

"You came back."

He sits up slowly to find that his little brother is no longer huddling against him for comfort, having grown up apparently overnight. Then again, even he finds that notion silly, so he discards it. The phantoms are transient, as always. Ludwig has pulled up a chair and is now sitting directly to his left. Gilbert turns to his brother but is still too groggy to say much. "What're y'doing here?" he slurs sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

Ludwig, on the other hand, is fully awake. "What do you _think_ I'm doing here?" he hisses, his whole body tense, his face set in a nasty glare.

"Dunno. Are you gonna yell at me about being lazy and not picking up after myself again?" Normally, when Ludwig stomps into the basement with a head full of steam, it's to castigate him for his laziness and nag him to be just a _little_ responsible for himself. Gilbert admits that, by this point, actually lifting a finger to do his own chores would be _something_ to do, but he's not especially motivated to move at this point.

Ludwig ignores Gilbert's snide remark and thrusts a crumpled piece of paper in his face, making him pull away from it once he recognizes what it is. "_This_ is what I'm doing down here."

Gilbert half-heartedly attempts to cover up what he did. "What about it? I just said I'd be going out for a walk and that I might not be back that night. What's the big deal?"

"I don't care about that. It's the rest of your addition to my note that concerns me. This is the kind of note left by someone who doesn't expect to come home. More specifically, a suicide note." He tries to sound calm and collected, but his voice falters upon reaching the "s-word."

"You're overreacting," Gilbert growls, pretending to be interested in something in the covers and trying to distract himself from the realization that he's in trouble.

His brother is completely onto him. "I'm not overreacting one bit," Ludwig says, still trying to keep a hold on his emotions. "In fact, I think I have evidence that my reaction is perfectly warranted. Ivan called me at work today."

"He WHAT?" The Prussian jolts to attention at the mention of Ivan. Whatever that fat bastard had planned couldn't possibly be good for him.

"He called me to tell me that you had stopped by sometime last night." Ludwig hesitates, unsure how much of the conversation to divulge, deciding to get right to the point in the end. "He told me that you asked him to kill you. He refused, gave you a place to stay the night, and then you vanished."

Gilbert shudders as last night's chain of memories runs through him once more. "How do you know he's not lying to get you all riled up? You should know he's not above that."

"Ivan's claim seems plausible to me, especially with that _note_ you left me," Ludwig replies, unable to disguise his distaste on the word "note." "He seemed quite concerned about you, actually. His voice didn't have that creepy lilt to it, so he must have been telling the truth."

"Ivan's 'concerned' act is probably just a load of bullshit. That guy would probably kill to see me crawling at his feet, sick and weak again. Fuck _NO,_" Gilbert snarls, giving the wall a good punch for emphasis.

The younger German is quick to counter him. "I don't think so, Gilbert. I can tell he's a little different, or at least not as hostile. But I guess Ivan isn't really as much of a factor so much as the events surrounding him." Ludwig's rate of speech grows quicker as he reveals more evidence, to the point that he's almost rambling. "There's no changing the fact that you left me a rather incriminating note and then ran off to Ivan's house in the middle of the night. Don't try to deny it. I'm pretty sure I would have seen you when I got ready for work this morning if you hadn't gone out. You're always in bed at that hour, and you weren't today."

Gilbert shrugs. "So what? Maybe I did decide to go out early for a change. What, do I really do so little that it's a shock when I actually do something?" If he really is that idle all the time, it's a convincing enough argument for him to try again later, for his situation is even worse than he thought.

"No, Gilbert! That's not it!" Ludwig's iron facade is crumbling, piece by piece. His voice gets more urgent with every word. "You don't seem to understand the magnitude of what you've done. You left me a suicide note and then asked someone to help you die!"

Unable to take the onslaught much longer, Gilbert thrusts himself forward into Ludwig's face, his outburst sounding more alarmed and desperate than angry. "For the last time, that's not a suicide note!"

Ludwig takes advantage of the increased closeness to grab Gilbert's shoulders, an impulse brought on more by his heightened emotions than anything else. "Gilbert! Tell me the truth! _What is going on with you?_"

For a moment, Gilbert swears he can hear a child's voice begging him to stay again, but it's too faint for him to care much. "Fine! It's all true! I went to Ivan's house last night, and I told him to finish what he started, because I can't fucking stand it down here!" He shoves his little brother away with a force that surprises both of them. "All I really have, other than memories and those... _things,_ is this damn basement!"

He is the one who rants and raves now, occasionally making a flailing gesture towards some undefined point in the room. Gilbert is almost shouting, exercising no control over his volume or the sorrow in his voice. "And I can't... I can't take it anymore! I'm tired of just sitting around the house all day! The others always have something to do at some point, but me? No! I eat and I stare at walls. Sometimes, for variety, I stare at a screen. Other times, my past shows up to remind me that everything that made me great is _gone!_ Does that sound like a happy life to you, West? Does it?"

His voice rises into a full shriek as his emotions build to a peak. He hides his face behind his hands because he can't let his little brother see him cry now, especially since Ludwig knows that he wants to die. Anything to lessen the pain on either end would help. He takes a deep breath to settle himself down. "It's not like you need me around here anymore, West. You grew up and stopped needing me to take care of you. In fact, you haven't needed me for nearly a century. Since I don't have any country to watch over or anyone who _needs_ me or even anything to do, I don't see any reason for me to stick around."

Ludwig's hands squeeze Gilbert's shoulders as tight as possible. He clenches his teeth, trying to hold back his tears. "What in the world are you talking about? You _are_ needed around here!"

Gilbert lowers his hands to shoot Ludwig a mean look. "Really? Give me an example of something important I can do that you can't."

Surprisingly, Ludwig has an answer prepared. "Only _you_ have a clear picture of what's going on in East Germany."

That came out of left field. "I what?" Gilbert cocks his head, utterly confused. "What the hell are you talking about, West? I have nothing to do with East Germany. Not anymore, anyway."

"You're _wrong!_ When I try to feel something in your region of the country, I can't sense it very strongly. Since there's no one else who could possibly be connected to that region, _you_ have to be the one who's capable of keeping tabs on it." Ludwig punctuates the "you" with another squeeze of his brother's shoulders. "This is _our_ country, brother. Do you understand that now?"

The resulting silence gives no indication as to the effect of Ludwig's words. However, an answer comes, stabbing through the quiet. "Prove it," Gilbert says, the growl still in his voice. The command places an unfair burden on Ludwig as he struggles to come up with a suitable proof, and his brother latches onto the gap in his response. "You can't do it, can you?" A noise that is either a harsh cackle or a bizarrely disguised sob escapes from Gilbert's mouth. He is only able to recover long enough to say, "All you've done is prove me right. As far as I'm concerned, I've still got nothing," and then the noise continues.

Ludwig readies a desperate counter. "That's not true! There _are_ things to do and ways for you to be happy now! You just won't open your eyes to see them because you're too busy looking into the past! Please, brother-" his words are abruptly choked off, and it's his turn to hide his face as the dam totally breaks.

He feels ashamed, letting the brother he wants to help see him so weak like this, the streams of tears small but steady. He hasn't cried like this since the worst of his childhood illnesses. The old aches even seem to be coming back, as if he has contracted Gilbert's strange condition too, and will remove his hand from his eyes to see his big brother standing over him instead of slightly under him. "I-I don't want you to die, and not just because you're responsible for a large chunk of my country," he coughs out.

Gilbert stares at Ludwig in utter shock, and he definitely hears a child bawling away, too. He wonders if he's a bad person for looking over his brother's broad shoulders to see where the child is instead of comforting the one in front of him. It doesn't matter that Ludwig doesn't want him to die, since he still wants _out,_ particularly after a breakdown like _this._ What does matter is that _he_ is the source of Ludwig's distress, and that's the last thing he wants. He wasn't the least bit concerned about lifting his burden on others before, but after seeing his strong brother break like the sickly little boy he once was, he has every reason to care.

Furthermore, he has a powerful new reason to leave as he planned. He doesn't want to stress his brother out further. The poor man puts enough pressure on himself already. He doesn't need anymore. Gilbert gives himself a new mission: calm his dear little brother down, then remove himself from the picture once the situation was stable. As he sees it, it would probably be a gift. One less thing for the worrywart to fuss over.

Slowly, he reaches out and puts his hand on Ludwig's shoulder. "I'm sorry, West. I'm so, so, sorry. M-maybe you're right. Maybe I am just missing the good things. I'll... I'll try to look for them, I swear." His voice wavers with emotional exhaustion, and he's lying through his teeth. He has no desire to look for anything "good" now; only to make himself a non-factor in his brother's woes.

"Please, Gilbert... please open your eyes to the world around you." Ludwig will never admit what a loss Gilbert's death would be to him. He's still trying to stay strong despite having crumbled to dust already. "You need to, because you _are_ tied to a country. If you try to kill yourself, you'll just heal up like nothing happened. I want you to realize this."

Gilbert willfully ignores Ludwig's last few sentences. "I will, West, I will." He feels terrible about having to lie to his brother, but anything is better than seeing him broken like this. Anything.

Ludwig won't be in despair for much longer. Not if Gilbert can help it. No matter what his little brother tries to tell him, he won't be leaving anything behind that he shouldn't. He will go peacefully.


	9. Chapter 9: Fade to Black

The rest of that day passes uneventfully, with Gilbert half-heartedly messing around on his computer while Ludwig checks on him at increasingly short intervals. At one point, he comes down every five minutes for a good hour. "West, stop stressing yourself out like this. I shouldn't make you this worried," Gilbert says to him after that ridiculously long string of interruptions.

"What do you mean, 'you shouldn't make me this worried?' You told me you wanted to kill yourself!" he replies, his face bright red. He had given up on trying to hold back his emotions for a change, since his cover was blown, and blown a good fifty miles away, too.

"You won't have to worry anymore, West. I can tell you that much," Gilbert says, trying to reassure his brother as much as he can.

For better or for worse, Ludwig's predilection for adhering to duties outweighs his emotional state, and he goes to work the next day, leaving Gilbert alone. Now is as good a time as any to set his plan in motion, and he sets about getting ready. He still has his old uniform from his Prussian military days squirreled away somewhere in his closet. There was no way he was going to give that up, oh no.

After some fumbling around, he finally digs it out and puts it on, finding that, to his dismay, it's gotten a bit tight on him. He shrugs it off and looks in the mirror, smiling faintly. He looks every bit as great as he did back then, not looking stuffed into his uniform at all, but there's a listless quality to his features that makes him look more like a mannequin in some historical museum than an incredible soldier from the War of Austrian Succession. Perhaps it is fitting. Soon he won't be much more than a doll of the past after all.

He scans the room, eyes finally falling on that sword, still in its sheath. "Come on, I'm taking you with me," he says to it as he attaches it to his belt. "It's time for a little antiques roadshow just for you and I." That sword was his friend back then, and it would be his friend now.

He has one last thing to do before he leaves. He pulls out a piece of paper, takes a deep breath, and then begins to write.

_West,_

His hand starts to tremble, and he tries to stabilize himself with another breath before going on. It's not because he has any problems with what he's about to do, but because worry for his brother flashes through his mind. He knows Ludwig will be saddened by this letter, to put it mildly, but what he really fears is that worse results may come than grief.

Something in his head whines a plaintive _I want to live,_ but he shakes the fears out of his head as quickly as they come. His little brother is strong enough to handle something like this. He can leave with no regrets. He has full confidence in what he's leaving behind, and that allows him to keep writing.

_This time, I'm not going to try and mislead you. I'm going out, and I have absolutely no plans of coming back. I know you think I still have a country and all of that bullshit, but I'm going to disagree with you. The country I was part of is gone, no matter what you think. There's nothing to keep me here. I refuse to believe that there is. It's not like I've received any convincing proof._

Since the misleading stops here, I'm also going to say that I lied to you yesterday when I said I'd give this world a chance. It hasn't given me one, but that's not quite the reason why I haven't given it one anyway. My new reason for dying is that I don't want to burden you anymore. When you broke down like that in front of me, I understood what I needed to do. I don't want to ever be the source of your sadness. You've already got enough stress, and I don't want to add to it. When I'm gone, you'll have one less thing to worry about, and I know that little bit will be a lot off your shoulders. I just want you to be happy. Most importantly, I don't want to be your burden.

But don't think, even for a minute, that any of this is your fault. You aren't pushing me to leave. This is all my decision, and I'm doing it to help you and free myself from all the "nothing" around me. In my first note, I said I was proud of you, and I meant it. I know that what I'm going to do is going to hurt you a lot, but I also know that you can take it. I don't think you need me as much as you think you do. You've shown yourself to be quite capable of living on your own, without me to help you. I've left my mark on history, and since my job seems to be more or less done here, I think I can leave without any worries.

What I really want to say is that my most important mark has to be you. You might think that my favorite eras were the ones with all the bloodshed, and you'd be right, for the most part. Those were the most fun, sure, but the best _times had to be the ones I spent with you. And the greatest thing that came from those times is that all the effort I put into raising you paid off tremendously._

You're a strong man now, and even better than that, you really do know how to take care of people. You're not just all brawn, like I am. I was built for an age when that was acceptable, but I'm obsolete now. This world belongs to people like you, West. I've raised someone capable of far more than I ever was, and that's enough for me. I don't need any more.

I'm going now, little brother. Take care of things in this new world, because I know that I can't do it, and that you definitely can.

Love,  
Gilbert

Gilbert wipes a tear from his eye and leaves the note on the kitchen table, where Ludwig is sure to find it.

His work done at last, he leaves, going directly to a place that he knows is far from where anyone will find him, a quiet place to rest. He ignores the stares he receives from passerby, not even giving a second glance to those who react more audibly.

This field is large and open, one of the few such places left and not gobbled up by the modern world. He takes a few last breaths of air, then pulls his sword out of its sheath. "I hope you're ready for this," he says to it. "We're going to go out in the best way there is left for us." He points it at himself and gets ready to sign away in blood everything about this world.

Unfortunately, his resolve suddenly fails on him. _Can I really go through with this?_ The doubts flood his head, washing out everything else. _What if I do die? What if I don't?_ Underneath it all is that warrior, screaming _I want to live_ even as he drowns. It's not too late for him to change his mind and go back.

His arms fall to his side, his sword no longer turned against him. He tells himself that, if he goes home now, it will just be more days of _nothing_ and Ludwig fretting needlessly. He has crossed the point of no return and must finish his mission as planned, but he still can't do away with himself, not even at this crucial juncture. His self-preservation instinct is just too strong.

He can see someone in the distance and decides to go closer. As he does, he finally recognizes the trespasser as Roderich, in an old military uniform of his own. The very sight gets his maniac grin going. "Well, well, well, who would have believed that the aristocrat was actually willing to get his hands dirty for once?" It doesn't matter that he never asked the Austrian to come; he's here and he looks real as day.

Then again, given Gilbert's track record for being able to determine what is and isn't real, Roderich might just be another phantom after all. He doesn't even bother to take that into account. "Can't say I'm not glad you showed up, though. Both of us kicking the shit out of each other one last time is a pretty epic way to go. Better than me just doing it myself, anyway. That's too quiet for me."

Roderich just stares at him, a sword in the hand much more suited to a bow. "Maybe you should've brought Elizaveta, too. I know she would _love_ to deal the finishing blow. But you didn't, so all I've got is you. Let's have one last duel between old rivals. I won't hold back, and neither should you. I'm not expecting much, but I bet you can at least make it interesting for me."

With that, the duel begins. The two are evenly matched, but Gilbert isn't really trying to hit Roderich at all, even though he's doing his share of parrying and dodging. The thrill is intoxicating, and he can tell Roderich is getting frustrated. He's dropped all pretenses of nobility and becoming something _fierce,_ attacking much quicker than Gilbert had ever seen him do. "Yes! This is how it's supposed to be done!" Gilbert cries, getting more and more ecstatic as the rhythm of the clashing of metal gets faster. "Now! Do it now, while we're in the heat of battle! That's the only way for me to go! The _only_ way! Come on, I know Eli would do it!"

Gilbert parries Roderich's blade one last time before spreading his arms. His bespectacled rival runs him through, pausing for one last look at the fallen warrior before pulling his sword out. _It's over,_ Gilbert thinks as he falls to the ground, darkness coming fast.

_I'm free._


	10. Chapter 10: Rise, Fall Down, Rise Again

Gilbert Beilschmidt breathes.

His eyes open. There is a blue sky above him.

He breathes again. And again. And again.

The wind blows. He feels it.

He sits up, gradually becoming conscious of the noise in his chest, the wonderful, miraculous _thump-thump_ of a live, beating heart, pumping away as if nothing had ever happened.

Gilbert Beilschmidt is alive.

He reaches up and touches his chest through the hole in his shirt left by the sword. The weapon is laying by his side, covered in blood that can only be his, since he never actually hit "Roderich" during the fight. He looks down to find that his shirt isn't quite as lucky as what's around him, ruined by rich red blood and the conspicuous hole. The coat has probably been wrecked, too, but he doesn't care about that right now. He's too busy feeling his heart thump in his chest.

He asked for convincing proof that he was still a nation, and he got it. He had died and come back, his body healed up good as new, with not even a scar to show for it. "I have a country. I have something to stay alive for," he says to himself aloud, relishing the sound of those words. He concentrates, and he can actually _feel_ his land and sense his people (mostly just the muddled voices of crowds for now, but that's good enough for him).

It occurs to him that he looks absolutely ridiculous in this ancient uniform of his. It's not that he wants to throw it out, even though it's not likely to meet any other fate thanks to the blood, but it's just so out of place, unlike him. He is _in_ place in this modern world, or at least he will be. He simply has to go take the place left open and waiting for him.

He picks the sword up and sheaths it. It's still a good friend of his, especially since it guided him to his new realizations. He's going to clean it off and display it prominently, as it should be. That's the kind of reward it'll get.

Gilbert Beilschmidt is going home.

The door is unlocked, which is a pleasant surprise. Ludwig has chosen to come home from work early, which is another pleasant surprise. He looks at Gilbert, doing an incredulous double take. "You." It's the only word he can speak.

He goes over to Gilbert, and the two brothers stare at each other for a while. Gilbert is the one who breaks the silence. "I'm a nation, West," he says, pointing to where his chest can be seen through the gap in his shirt. "Look. Not even a scar." He smiles faintly, even as those tears refuse to be held back anymore.

Ludwig stands there awkwardly, then gives in again. He throws his arms around his brother (not even caring about the blood on his shirt), holding him tight, tight. "You actually did it."

Gilbert is distracted by a young child's voice echoing Ludwig's words, but answers anyway after a delay. "I did. And I lived, because I have a country and a little brother to watch over."

"You finally got your proof," Ludwig says, burying his head in his brother's shoulder, trying to hide steady streams of tears. The little boy's voice still echoes his.

Gilbert tries to look over Ludwig's shoulders again for the child, but gives up quickly. "Yep. I'm just too… awesome to die, right? I think I'm getting my awesome back, slowly but surely. No, wait, I _know_ I'm getting my awesome back. I can feel it."

The voice echoing Ludwig's isn't quite as high-pitched anymore, maybe because the child has grown a bit. Gilbert guesses that the boy is now twelve or so years old. That's how old his brother was when the wars being fought in his land started to make him even sicker than before, so Gilbert expects to hear a cough or a feeble whine. The real Ludwig says, "I can tell, and I'm glad you are. It's so much better than... well..." He pauses, unwilling to speak of Gilbert's previous condition.

"I know. I'm determined to only go up from here. I'm gonna be my old self again, and everyone else is gonna have to love it." Gilbert can't stifle some triumphant laughter. He feels he deserves a laugh; he'd stared death in the face and lived without a scratch on him. "I can't believe I wanted to leave all this behind."

The child's voice is deeper still now, probably coming from someone about fifteen years old. "That's one difference right away. You realize that you actually have things that you were going to leave behind." Gilbert chuckles at something Ludwig doesn't know about. "What's so funny?"

Gilbert was waiting for the boy's voice to crack. That had been a near-constant source of entertainment back in Ludwig's childhood days. "Oh, nothing. But yeah, I was leaving a lot of things behind! How could I leave a house, a warm bed, food, the wind, the sun... how could I leave all that stuff behind? And most importantly... How could I leave you behind? It's not like I could make sure my little brother was okay if I was dead."

"That part in your note about trying to 'lift my burdens' was the worst," Ludwig quickly responds, his voice getting hoarse from his tears. "Why in the world would you think that leaving me would make me worry less?"

The echo speaks with an eighteen-year-old's voice now, just the slightest bit higher than the voice it follows. _Almost there,_ Gilbert thinks to himself. His answer is simple. "I was desperate for a reason to die."

Ludwig's grip around his brother strengthens. "Gilbert, I don't want you here just because you can see the parts of the country that I can't or only because you're my brother. I want you here because you're an essential part of my life. When you were gone with Ivan, do you have any idea how empty this house was?" There is no echo this time, no matter how hard Gilbert listens. "You keep this place alive. You're something to look forward to in the morning."

A deep breath, then another squeeze to keep himself stable, and Ludwig continues. "Even when we get into stupid little fights about your inability to clean up after yourself or some other trivial matter, it's still so much better than nothing. Without you in this house, I don't have much to feel. It's the most boring, torturous thing in existence." He notices that his brother seems to be looking for something. "You're not having another vision, are you?"

Gilbert shakes his head. "Nope. Not anymore. I... I think I'm ready to move on, West." He repeats the words of the voice in his head: "I want to live."

"Good. You can start by getting out of that uniform. Which, I might add, is ruined." Already, Ludwig's neat-freak instincts are kicking in, and he's relieved to find that no blood got on his body from the hug. Both of them see the abrupt transition as merely a sign that life is returning to normal. "That thing needs to be thrown out."

"Roddy would complain about that, wouldn't he?" Gilbert replies with a laugh, a real one. "Yeah, I didn't think this thing would make it. Besides, it's tight on me. I guess I've, uh, outgrown it," he admits somewhat sheepishly.

"Or at least outlived it," Ludwig suggests, just trying to help.

Gilbert pulls out of the embrace. "You know, you were right when you said that there were things left for me in this world. I just refused to look at them because I was sooooo busy focusing on how I'd lost Prussia and all those things that I thought made me great. So untrue! I've got a lot of things to make me great, even now!" His voice lowers, but still buzzes with excitement, as if he's telling the world's most fascinating secret. "I can sense my people, West! I haven't been able to do that in decades. Well, I might have been able to, but I never bothered trying."

Ludwig makes eye contact with his brother, his gaze serious. "Now do you believe me when I say that the eastern regions are still yours?" Gilbert nods. "Good. We've both got a lot of work to do."

Gilbert's winning grin is back in full force, just as strong as it was in days long gone. "Not a problem! I'm not going to lose sight of what I am like that again. I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt. I live in the present. I have a country, a brother, and a future. And I'm too awesome to let weepy bullshit bog me down. I'm ready to _live._ I'm getting back on my feet, and I'll be my old self again before you know it!" He says "awesome," and he truly feels it.

His brother's body held against him is warm and real, comforting in a way only the living can truly know. _This is what I was going to leave behind?_ Gilbert wonders. The feeling of contact is no different now than it was then. He no longer understands how he could possibly leave behind something like _this,_ a brother who truly loved and cared for him.

There were just too many good things that Gilbert would end up forsaking forever along with the bad. He knows that, if he had died in his foolhardy attempt to escape from his pain, he would also "escape" from feelings of love, of warmth, of being able to feel at all. Even feeling bad was better than feeling nothing ever again.

He was making a grave error, wanting to leave because he felt unneeded. Even if he wasn't needed, he was _wanted,_ and that was even better. Something tells him that death must be quite lonely, especially without those loved in the living world.

* * *  
A few days later, Gilbert spins around in his chair in the basement, taking a break from updating his blog to death to enjoy some of his favorite ice cream. He's alive, and he's not going to let anyone forget it.

"Is everything alright down here?" Ludwig asks, checking in on his brother. "Be careful with that ice cream. I'm not getting you a new computer."

Gilbert takes a spoonful, then spins around in another orbit. "Oh, come on, you worry too much, West! Everything's fine down here!"

"Alright, fine, but if I hear you yelling, I'm coming down there. And if you've wrecked another computer, I'm breaking its remains over that thick skull of yours, understand?" This kind of banter is quite common nowadays. Ludwig always finds it amusing when he's the one teasing Gilbert for a change.

"Hey, you've got a thick skull too, you know!" Gilbert calls up as Ludwig heads back upstairs. He sighs contentedly. There's a lot of noise between them recently, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't love it. Even Ludwig loosens up under the right conditions.

Suddenly, he stops his revolutions when he sees something odd out of the corner of his eye. He turns to the back of his room to see Old Fritz and young Ludwig staring at him, as if beckoning him to step over some invisible threshold into their world. "Hey, you two," he says, as if there's nothing unusual going on at all. "You want some of my ice cream? It's strawberry. I bet you guys would like it."

No response from either of them, only more staring. "That's a shame. This stuff is _good._" He stares back at them for a little while, then says, "Well, it was nice seeing you guys again. Stop by more often, why don't ya?" before spinning around to his computer. Old Fritz is dead and the little boy has long since grown up to be a healthy, responsible adult. Both of them are wonderful, and there was nothing wrong with their visit, but they are a part of history. Times have changed.

One lonely tear rolls down Gilbert's cheek. Times have changed, indeed. There is no way for him but forward.


End file.
